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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 138
James explained that if a man had his own stock and equipment, he rented. In that case he would give the landowner about one-third or one-fourth of his crop. If a man didn't own his own stock and equipment, he was a sharecropper, and he would give the landowner one-half of his crop. Moses bought the land (C-131) where he lived and farmed from Milton Lanier. This research already has established that Milton Lanier was a large landowner, having owned land throughout the area that is now RSA, as well as areas not encompassed by the arsenal. The Laniers go back to pre-Civil War times as plantation owners, and a plantation home still exists in Madison, lived in by a Lanier family member. The farm Moses owned was called “the old Lanier place.” James said that Milton Lanier was his father's attorney. Sometime after he bought the 300-acre parcel, Moses bought a 40-acre plot down in the river bottom. Moses Love purchased 87.34 acres of bottomland from John W. Jamar, a single man, for $2,800 on September 28, 1917. James said that other landowners whose property was near or joined his father's plot were Paris Branford, Walter Kelly, and Walter Jacobs. James said his father had to sell this land to the government; TVA made a lot of people sell to the government. Since the government “took” this land as a required TVA sale, it is not shown on the Army Real Estate Property Map, which was drawn in conjunction to the later forced sale to the Army. However, he said it bordered the property of Walter Kelly, who may have lost some bottomland but was able to retain Parcel C-142D. The deed for the bottomland property James described is shown on the following page; the property location can be discerned by examining it. Crops and Farming, and the Gin. Moses grew cotton, corn, peanuts, and cane. Most of the 300-acre parcel that Moses Love owned was planted in cotton. While discussing crops, James said that his father liked to invest. Moses owned four stock certificates in the Longview Gin Company downtown in Huntsville. The gin was located not far from Hall Street. During the course of talking with other Pond Beat and Mullins Flat inhabitants, the researcher was told that many Black people went together and started their own gin. James said both his father and his Uncle Darphus had cattle. In the wintertime when they were not farming, James said most people let the cattle run around loose. However, his daddy put a fence up for theirs. James said it was “a good ways” to the field down in the river bottom. The field had rich soil and was right next to the “river” (shown on the Army Real Estate Map as Wheeler Reservoir). Moses raised corn there. James said, “Sometimes five or six men would be working down there, plowing or pulling corn back and forth to the house” (to Moses Love's home). Moses had men who worked for him, but his sons worked for him, too. 138 - (4171)